Mesoporous Crystalline Niobium Oxide with a High Surface Area: A Solid Acid Catalyst for Alkyne Hydration

A mesoporous crystalline niobium oxide with tunable pore sizes was synthesized via the sol–gel-based inverse micelle method. The material shows a surface area of 127 m2/g, which is the highest surface area reported so far for crystalline niobium oxide synthesized by soft template methods. The materi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS applied materials & interfaces 2020-10, Vol.12 (42), p.47389-47396
Main Authors: Rathnayake, Dinithi, Perera, Inosh, Shirazi-Amin, Alireza, Kerns, Peter, Dissanayake, Shanka, Suib, Steven L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
alkyne hydration
catalysts
crystalline
Energy, Environmental, and Catalysis Applications
heterogeneous catalysis
hydrocarbons
INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
materials
mesoporous
niobium oxide
oxides
solid acids
transition metals
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Summary:A mesoporous crystalline niobium oxide with tunable pore sizes was synthesized via the sol–gel-based inverse micelle method. The material shows a surface area of 127 m2/g, which is the highest surface area reported so far for crystalline niobium oxide synthesized by soft template methods. The material also has a monomodal pore size distribution with an average pore diameter of 5.6 nm. A comprehensive characterization of niobium oxide was performed using powder X-ray diffraction, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, UV–vis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The material acts as an environmentally friendly, solid acid catalyst toward hydration of alkynes under with excellent catalytic activity (99% conversion, 99% selectivity, and 4.39 h–1 TOF). Brønsted acid sites present in the catalyst were found to be responsible for the high catalytic activity. The catalyst was reusable up to five cycles without a significant loss of the activity.
ISSN:1944-8244
1944-8252
DOI:10.1021/acsami.0c10757